Bulletin No. 2, 2009

Our Humanities Scholars   11  Professor Lee graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of National Taiwan University (NTU) in 1961. In the spring of 1960 he had founded the pioneering literary magazine Modern Literature with renowned writer Pai Hsien-yung and other students. After graduating from NTU, he went to Harvard University to study Chinese intellectual history under the tutorship of great sinologists like Benjamin Schwartz, John Fairbank, Yang Lien-sheng. He obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard and taught in many different American universities. From 1970 to 1972, he joined CUHK as an instructor in the Department of History. He retired from Harvard to join CUHK again in 2004 as honorary director and Professor of Humanities of the Centre for East Asian Studies. He is now Wei Lun Professor of Humanities of the Faculty of Arts and a fellow of Morningside College. Professor Lee’s works are intellectual yet free from the opacity of academic writing. His famous book Shanghai Modern , for example, has been read and loved by readers in and beyond the ivory tower alike. In his recent work City between Worlds: My Hong Kong , he takes readers through the streets of old and modern Hong Kong, unravelling the history of the city, from the City of Victoria during early colonial days to Suzie Wong’s Wan Chai, from Dung Kai- cheung’s Natural Creation to Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express , presenting a genuine and complex Hong Kong to the world. ‘Without humanities education, a university can never be described as great,’ says Professor Lee. In his eyes, CUHK has the glorious humanistic tradition of Neo-Confucianism, its humanities faculty are also first-class. Professor Lee agreed to be a fellow of Morningside College because he believes that the College’s being fully residential and having communal dining will allow him more opportunities to provide extra-curricular education to its students.